BoilerUP

The amount of pilots is already on its way down due to the insane cost of flight training and word slowly spreading that the brass ring has lost most of its luster...let's not penalize Joe Bugsmasher with stupid user fees that'll only serve to reduce general aviation in America like they have in Europe & Canada.

Rnav

Yeah, there will be a shortage. But I don't think it will matter. As long as the system exist(ATP, gulfstream,etc) to go from zero to hero in months there will always be a way to fill the gap created by retirements. Enrollment may be down now, but look at all the threads of newbies still looking for ways to pay for flight training. The cycle continues, its just that everytime it declines it just recovers lower than where it dropped off...

Lighteningspeed

A very good point. I've been to Europe and over there it is so expensive to fly GA airplanes, only select few can do it on a regular basis.
I am against user fees period. User fees will not raise stds or create demands for more pilots. Only way to create more demands for pilots is to create more flying jobs in the US. Only way this is going to happen is to create business incentives and reduce unnecessary regulations taxes insurance rates and fees that makes it too expensive for individuals or companies to start aviation business in the US.

grdprox

Heres the thing. I'm at Delta 2.0 and my brother is a capt. at RAH. He has my recco along with a few of my buddies here and I keep telling him when we start hiring again, and we will, he's in. He keeps telling me he's not interested because he makes good money at his regional with QOL and he doesn't want to sacrifice being on resv. forever and the worry of furlough in the future here. How do you tell the "career reg. lifer" that it's "better on the other side"??? I see it but he doesn't

flynavyj

Have you found yourself furloughed from Delta yet? If not, then when you do, i'm sure his point of view might be pretty understandable. Someone had done the math on things once before about a senior regional captain, and the years necessary to make the same $$ once jumping to the major. If you throw in a furlough, and the years away from the cockpit, and the number of years left to retirement, it can SOMETIMES become difficult to justify making the jump.

250 or point 65

Hey bud, hows the life out of the airlines (by choice anyway )?

The problem with your argument is that pilot labor is not quite as in a vacuum as other commodities such as corn or oil.

We are commodities, and although oversupply causes the price of labor to go way down and quickly, a shortage will not cause the price of labor to go way up and quickly. Management has pretty good control over the supply side by means of raising and lowering minimums (except if there were a SEVERE shortage). Also, management has tools to lower pilot salaries while in contract; bankruptcy, etc. Pilots really have no tools to force a higher wage in contract.

So I guess what I'm saying is that fewer pilots may eventually mean higher cost of labor, but it will need to be much fewer pilots and for a longer time.

What we can do as a group is demand a higher price for our services in contract negotiations. This is what TSA is trying to do and something I think we will be successful with because of the change in administration.

250 or point 65

What about raising the FAA requirements for airline pilots? To be hired by an airline you must meet ATP mins? Or you must have 1000 hrs?

1000 hrs would be more feasible because you most likely would need a year at a regional to upgrade. By that time you would have 1500 hrs at least.

I firmly believe that the large influx of pilots recently has been caused by the hiring of 200 guys. If I am joe 6 pack sitting at my crappy job and find out that I can be an airline pilot in 3 months, SURE! There was very little barrier to entry there for a while and thus now a lot of pilots in waiting.

944Turbo

How about ALPA having minimum experience requirments in order to join the union. Union Shop is a must in this case.

flynavyj

Having the union make a barrier to joining the union would do something ALPA isn't for (not collecting dues). Creating an minimum hour requirement might sound good to us, however, to the airlines it would be the union imposing restrictions which could result in their inability to compete effectively.

If the union wants to change factors that create an easy entrance to the cockpit of an airliner, then they'll need to do so on the regulatory level, barring entry to a predetermined number of applicants, whether they do that by changing the minimum hour requirement, or requiring a particular training environment and a predetermined grading system of flight experience (aka, CFI = 3 points, MIL = 10 points, single pilot freight = 8 points,) and then a minimum say (50 points) to gain entry to the cockpit, i dunno. But I'd say the changes will have to be at a higher level than just the union, and the call for the change will have to come from the people (public) and not just a bunch of pilots who wished they made more money.

250 or point 65

Wow, amazing what you think of CFI's!

I agree though, it can't just be an ALPA thing. It's gotta be a reg thing. However, I think that it would be to ALPA's benefit to do that. Like you said, ALPA likes collecting dues. Wouldn't there be a point where higher wages would make up for less contributors? And really, we wouldn't even be talking about fewer contributors, the airlines for a long while would have plenty of people.